Menu

A Memory Hole

I am a phlegmatic man. But once, just once, I want to wake up and invent a new design philosophy, and acronymize it so sublimely even a sixth-grader can instantly grasp its exultation of the human spirit:

I want to shout down from the rooftops — especially from the rooftop of what was once the largest computer vendor in the world — making sure every soul hears it, even the Proles:

Post navigation

41 thoughts on “A Memory Hole”

We’re talking about an industry here that has ALWAYS marched in lockstep. They took their OS, and their marching orders, from Microsoft. Now that MS has lost its luster, it’s no surprise they’d look to the new PC leader, Apple, for direction. (They’d switch to selling Apple clones in a heartbeat if they were allowed to.) To expect anything else goes against the fact that has (almost) always been true: Beyond Apple and Microsoft, there are no leading lights in the PC business. (And Microsoft’s a dim bulb at best.) Linux is not a mover and shaker, Amiga is gone, Microsoft is sliding towards irrelevancy (more than ever, they simply look to Apple for direction). It all flows from Cupertino now.

Wow, that video is so bad I was seriously wondering if it was a parody for the first couple minutes.

It’s almost to the point where I’m embarrassed to pull out my old HP calculator in public. Unless someone is an engineer over 35, I don’t think they realize that HP used to be an innovative company that made class-leading products, which were elegant and lasted for decades.

Nice and tasty as usual. If I remember right Stacy Wolff did defend the form as an expression of their design objectives, and mentioned “Apple does not have a monopoly on minimal” or something like that.

Not sure if I agree with him or the design direction, but at least they are trying?

The problem is, it’s not minimal. They’ve still got the big plastic panels and weird air vents and extra junk around the bottom and edges. It takes the surface styling of the top of Apple’s laptops, without taking any of the substance.

As the old quip goes, “the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good”. I wish they *were* truly trying, because something that was completely original at least has a chance of being good.

Borrowing parts from someone else’s good design, without understanding why it’s good, always seems to lead to trouble. If you can’t understand why something is good, it’s usually best to go as far from it as possible. Imagine he wrote a symphony, and started with the first 8 notes of Beethoven’s 5th. I can pretty much guarantee it’s going to be awful. (In fact, I think Peter Schikele did just this, but he was trying to be bad!)

If he’s contending that he’s incredibly unimaginative since he’d be saying that Apple’s take on minimal is the only one possible. A good designer would be able to come up with their own interpretation. For starters, there are other materials than aluminum and its lookalikes.

If you’re going to copy Apple, why not fix the stupid things Apple does for idiosyncratic reasons? I hate the too-small keyboard and would a full sized Bluetooth keyboard, yet they made it the same size, same trackpad etc. And I sure want to stroke my hand over that painted silver plastic (not).

HP thought since mac people didn’t cry about
Vizio all-in-one PC and Laptop.
may be we will get a pass.
SJ would have never sued HP for sentimental reasons
as well as HP has some patents that are fundamental
in smartphone and pc arena.

In these difficult economic times, HP was obliged to examine every aspect of their business to evaluate what is core to their operations and what can be outsourced. They’ve made the difficult – but correct – decision to outsource design to Apple. I applaud them for their foresight and courage.

If you don’t understand the quote, the meaning is that a “Great artist” uses an idea, but evolves it so far forward that it stands as its own idea. Thus, the concept of “steal”, as the evolved idea is so far forward that everyone sees it as a new idea.

I’ll give a vivid illustration of what is meant by “great artists steal…”. It is subtle, hence widely…and sadly…misunderstood.

Ludwig Van Beethoven composed his first two piano concerti with a Mozartian cloud hanging over his head. How could it not !? Mozart had just passed away, leaving deep stylistic imprints upon the conversation a piano engages in with a fully instrumented orchestra. One simply could not escape the vortex created by Mozart’s winds of incorruptible music, …especially piano music.

So…Beethoven ‘stole’ Mozart’s tempi, cadenzas, musical structures, …and made variations on piano music as it was meant to be composed, orchestrated, and played out within a ‘Classical period’ closing ceremony. It was subconsciously meant to render the un-perfectibility of a very finely attuned ending to a now bygone era.

Beethoven’s third piano concerto, ‘The Emperor’, powered by a transcending…a noble larceny, engaged, full piano thrusters ahead, into the Romantic era… And so we, as a civilization, have merrily transitioned from God-mediated musical perfection, …to the emotional dictate of human interaction, …on a curtain-call iteration. In absentia.

He is holding something in his hand that reminds me of an Intel initiative referred to as “Ultra”-something that a little company named Intel “Mused” two years ago when the MacBook Air was handing Netbooks their shorts. It reminds me of an episode of The Partridge Family when Danny was dreaming up a new song in his sleep.